Two pleas were filed in the Supreme Court on Wednesday over the tractor rally violence on Republic Day, with one seeking the setting up of a commission, headed by a retired apex court judge, to inquire into the incident, while the other urged it to direct the media not to declare farmers as "terrorist" without any evidence.
The Congress on Saturday attacked the Centre over a New York Times report which claimed that the Indian government bought the Pegasus spy tool in 2017 as part of a deal with Israel, alleging that the government indulged in illegal snooping using the spyware which amounts to 'treason.'
Faced with prospect of its assets across the globe being seized just like Pakistan and Venezuela, the government decided to scrap retrospective taxation but the international embarrassment could have been avoided had 'attached' shares of Britain's Cairn Energy Plc not been sold, according to tax and legal experts. On Thursday, the government introduced a Bill in Parliament to scrap the tax rule that gave the tax department power to go 50 years back and slap capital gains levies wherever ownership had changed hands overseas but business assets were in India. The 2012 legislation was used to levy a cumulative of Rs 1.10 lakh crore of tax on 17 entities, including UK telecom giant Vodafone, but substantial punitive action was taken only in the case of Cairn.
Former Indian team captain Bishan Singh Bedi and ex-cricketer Kirti Azad on Thursday batted in the Supreme Court for implementation of Justice Rajendra Mal Lodha committee's recommendation on structural reforms in the Board of Control for Cricket in India.
The National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) will hear e-commerce major Amazon's interim plea on February 14, seeking a stay over the order passed by fair trade regulator CCI that had suspended the over two-year-old approval for its deal with Future Coupons Pvt Ltd (FCPL). A three-member bench on Monday directed to list Amazon's plea on February 14 to pass an interim order and stay the operations of the order passed by the Competition Commission of India (CCI) in December last year till it finally decides the matter. "The registry is directed to list on February 14 for hearing," said the NCLAT bench. The appellate tribunal also directed to list the appeals filed by the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) and All India Consumer Product Distributors Federation on the same date.
Italian PM Paolo Gentiloni's visit is the first prime ministerial trip from Italy in more than a decade.
Adani's $15-billion Carmichael coal mine is stuck since 2010.
The Supreme Court Tuesday set aside three Delhi high court orders including the refusal to grant a stay on the final arbitral award which had restrained Future Retail Ltd from going ahead with its Rs 24,731 crore merger deal with Reliance Retail and ordered fresh adjudication. In a major relief to Future group, a bench headed by Chief Justice N V Ramana also set aside the high court's order of February 2 last year, by which it had directed Future Retail Ltd (FRL) to maintain status quo in relation to the merger deal. The March 18 order of the high court, upholding the EA's award and imposing a cost of Rs 20 lakh on it as well as its directors, has also been set aside.
'The court came to a conclusion using one person's case... Based on that one case, the term "rampant misuse" was used as if it is a generalisation.' 'If one in 10 cases turns out to be false, is it possible to call the Act a charter for blackmail or charter for personal vengeance?' 'Is there any Act either in India or anywhere in the world where there are no false cases?'
The Madras high court on Thursday ruled that no unannounced resolutions could be taken up at the meeting of the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam general and executive councils in Chennai, restraining the camp led by joint co-ordinator Edappadi K Palaniswami (EPS) from initiating any such move over the possible single leadership issue.
'If we were to change the name of our country officially and become a Hindu Rashtra, will the treatment of Muslims change?' asks Aakar Patel.
The govt is also criticised for its choice of Khawar Qureshi, who represented Pakistan's case before the ICJ.
The levy of retrospective tax on the UK's Cairn Energy Plc is a tale of bizarre twists and turns that saw its attached shares being sold in May 2018 amid the passing of the baton from a full-time finance minister to interim one and the talks at the highest level to resolve the dispute, to claims that levy of back taxes was a result of an investigation into Panama Papers leak. The government late last month refunded about Rs 7,900 crore it had collected from selling residual shares of the British firm in its erstwhile India unit, seizing dividend and withholding tax refunds, to settle an eight-year-old dispute that had tarred the country's reputation as an investment destination. But, this did not come about easily. For seven years, the establishment vehemently justified in courts and outside seeking of Rs 10,247 crore in back taxes plus interest and penalty from a firm that gave India its biggest onshore oil discovery.
The Centre said that the arbitration under United Nation Convention on the Law of Sea (UNCLOS), which was instituted on a request from the Republic of Italy has delivered its Award on May 21, 2020.
The Narendra Modi-led government has issued around 50 fresh guidelines easing conditions for industry in about six months, beside launching an online system for applying environment clearances.
A recently-signed pact with Indonesia may come in handy for India to bring back arrested underworld don Chhota Rajan as the agreement allows deportation of criminals on either side based on a court warrant.
New Delhi sought a sovereign guarantee to prevent Paris from ever citing the Arms Trade Treaty to interrupt, modify or cease delivery of the Rafale fighter at any stage.
Future Retail's (FRL's) independent directors have written a second letter to the Competition Commission of India (CCI), stating American e-commerce major Amazon never intended to invest in Future Coupons (FCPL) and the representations made by the US e-commerce player were completely opposite and contradictory to their own internal correspondences as submitted before courts. The directors also wrote to CCI that Amazon has obtained approval by making deliberate misrepresentations. By actively misleading the CCI and the regulator, it has to revoke the approval granted for Amazon's investment in FCPL.
Sources said about hundreds of companies, including Facebook and Amazon, could seek tax refund because they import software for sale in India.
India is not so keen to co-operate with the US on IPR related probe.
The probe is being conducted under various sections of the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) after the central probe agency recently received a communication from the commerce ministry seeking "necessary action" against e-commerce players like Amazon and Flipkart pertaining to certain multi-brand retail businesses and an observation made by the Delhi High Court in relation to Amazon.
Britain's Cairn Energy Plc has dropped lawsuits against the Indian government and its entities in the US and other places and is in the final stages of withdrawing cases in Paris and the Netherlands to get back about Rs 7,900 crore that were collected from it to enforce a retrospective tax demand. As part of the settlement reached with the government to the seven-year old dispute over levy of back taxes, the company - which is now known as Capricorn Energy PLC - has initiated proceedings to withdraw lawsuits it had filed in several jurisdictions to enforce an international arbitration award which had overturned levy of Rs 10,247 crore retrospective taxes and ordered India to refund the money already collected. Two sources with direct knowledge of the matter said Cairn on November 26 withdrew the lawsuit it had brought in Mauritius for recognition of the arbitration award and took similar measures in courts in Singapore, the UK and Canada.
Retrospective claims may not stand the test in international courts.
The apex court said people value their privacy more than the value of the company which might be in trillions.
Several petitions, including those by Congress MP Jairam Ramesh and Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra have been filed in the Supreme Court challenging the constitutional validity of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act 2019.
While Amazon is expected to approach either Mumbai or Delhi high court to enforce the interim order of SIAC, the Future Group, too, is likely to challenge the order. Legal experts also expect the Reliance group to expedite the process for regulatory clearances in the deal.
UK-based Cairn Energy PLC on Wednesday said it has agreed to drop litigations to seize Indian properties in countries ranging from France to the UK as it has accepted the Indian government's offer to settle tax dispute relating to the levy of taxes retrospectively. Meeting the requirements of new legislation that scraps levy of retrospective taxation, the company has given required undertakings indemnifying the Indian government against future claims as well as agreeing to drop any legal proceedings anywhere in the world. The government now has to accept this and issue Cairn a so-called Form-II, that will commit it to refund the tax collected to enforce the retrospective tax demand.
Petitioner Abhijit Iyer Mitra and three others have contended in the petition that marriages between same sex couples are not possible despite the Supreme Court decriminalising consensual homosexual acts.
Swaraj also said that Pak cannot take Kashmir to the ICJ.
The Supreme Court suggested that Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals must be barred from the Indian Premier League, it was reported on Thursday. The Apex Court further proposed that Indian batting legend Sunil Gavaskar must be made BCCI president and take over from N Srinivasan.
The National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) on Monday adjourned till February 25, the hearing on the plea of e-commerce major Amazon, seeking an interim stay over the order passed by fair trade regulator CCI, which suspended the over-two-year-old approval for its deal with Future Coupons Pvt Ltd (FCPL). When the matter was called for hearing, a two-member bench expressed its difficulties to take up the matter on Monday, as one of the members is retiring in the next four days, after completing his tenure. In this matter, NCLAT would also have to hear other parties such as fair trade regulator CCI, before passing an order and it would take some more time and then the retiring member would not be a part of the bench.
The proposed changes to the child labour law to allow children and adolescents to work for their families would be most retrograde and regressive, say Shinzani Jain and Paranjoy Guha Thakurta.
The court then directed the government to pay the salary and retirement benefits to the dependents of the PoWs.
The Singapore-based arbitrator, SIAC, has rejected Future Retail's plea to lift the interim stay on its Rs 24,713-crore deal with Reliance Retail, giving a major relief to Amazon that is contesting the transaction. The development comes a day after the Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC) held that Future Retail is a party to the ongoing arbitration between Amazon and Future group in the dispute over the sale of its assets to Reliance Retail. Future had contended before the SIAC that it should be excluded from arbitration proceedings because it is not a party to the dispute between its promoter Future Coupons Pvt Ltd (FCPL) and Amazon.
Sections in the draft Personal Data Protection Bill are a blatant violation of the Right to Privacy as guaranteed by the Constitution.
The government may be waiting for the outcome of an arbitration initiated against its levy of Rs 10,247 crore retrospective tax on UK's Cairn Energy Plc before deciding on appealing against losing a tax case against Vodafone Group, sources said. An international arbitral tribunal is expected to give a decree within next few days on Cairn Energy Plc's challenge to the Indian government seeking Rs 10,247 crore in retrospective taxes. If the arbitration award in the Cairn cases goes against India, the government has to pay the British firm over Rs 7,600 crore to reverse the dividend and tax refund it had ceased and shares it sold to recover part of the tax demand.
Italy has criticised India's handling of the case of two of its marines accused of killing two Indian fisherman as "contradictory" and "disconcerting" ahead of a hearing of the case in India's Supreme Court.
US e-commerce giant Amazon has written to Ajay Tyagi, chairman of market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi), to take action as is necessary to comply with the Supreme Court Judgment, related to the $3.4-billion merger deal between Future Group and Reliance. Amazon has requested Sebi to direct the Indian stock exchanges to withdraw the Observation Letters related to this deal with immediate effect. In January this year, Sebi had given a go-ahead onto Future Group's scheme of arrangement and sale of assets to Reliance, based on which the Bombay Stock Exchange also granted its "no adverse observation" report to the Rs 24,713-crore ($3.4 billion) deal.
The Chinese government on Saturday ordered the release of people detained over a host of coronavirus-related incidents, a day ahead of Beijing's plan to scrap its three-year-old stringently implemented zero-Covid policy.
The submission was made by the UN Special Rapporteurs on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression Irene Khan; on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association Clement Nyaletsossi Voule; and the right to privacy, Joseph Cannataci.
